The Woman on the Platform
by GeoffreyF
Summary: It's 1979, and George Parker, head of the London Ambulance service, is about to retire. Something draws his mind back to a train crash he worked at in 1949, and the extraordinary experience he had there. Oneshot.


_I know, I set myself a challenge and the first thing I do is go and write something completely different. This is another idea that just came to me, and has been bugging me all week, so I just had to write it. It doesn't actually mention by name anything to do with Narnia, but hopefully it's pretty clear what it's about. Apologies for any historical inaccuracies - I tried to keep them down, but I don't really know very much about emergency services in London. I would greatly appreciate any feedback, as always.  
_

_Disclaimer: I own nothing to do with Narnia.  
_

The Woman on the Platform

_17__th__ March 1979_

My name is George Parker, and I am Chief Executive of the London Ambulance Service. I've been asked to write a speech for my retirement, which is in June, shortly after my 65th birthday. How very old that sounds! I suppose you won't believe me when I tell you that I feel as young as ever.

I'm no public speaker, though, and will probably write a short and formulaic speech in which I thank various colleagues and family members and say nothing of importance or note. Probably no one will ever read this little story, but I feel that, as my own personal farewell, I should recount the strangest episode of my forty-five years' service.

I joined the ambulance service in 1934, when I was twenty years old. I was young, and taken up with ideas of heroism and other foolish nonsense. I soon realised that the emergency services were more grim and heart-wrenching than I had imagined. But it was always worth it, when we saved someone who would otherwise have died. It was uplifting – a cliché, I know, but a good one. I determined to be the best that I could be.

We were exempt from the draft during the War; we were required at home, to fix the vast mess the Germans made when they bombed London. I saw things then that have stayed in my memory ever since. I would rather not write of them.

The event I intend to recount happened later, in 1949. I remember being called to a railway station in London – do you know I can't even remember which it was? I could look it up, I suppose, in the records, but the station is not of importance. I'm sure you could find it in any recent history book, for it was one of the worst disasters that ever blighted the record of British Railways. I don't know why it happened – an error in communications, I suppose – but there was a head-on collision, right at the platform. It was devastation. Hundreds of people were injured, and many were killed, both in the trains and on the platform. The driver of one of the trains, in a panic, had tried to swerve (stupidly, for he was on tracks), and had ploughed straight through the platform. I hadn't seen anything like it since the War.

I was thirty-five years old at the time, and was placed in charge of getting the wounded – and bodies – out of the wreckage. It was an honour to be able to help, really, and I was determined that all who could be saved would be. I was so involved that it was some time before I noticed.

There was a woman on the platform.

The first thing that went through my head was, _How did she get there? Why did they let her through?_ Then I wondered how she had known to dress in black: the police had only been notifying families for an hour or so. I knew that I would have to deal with her. We couldn't have civilians at the site; it was far too dangerous.

As I drew closer, I realised that she wasn't wearing black at all, but a deep midnight blue. Somehow she managed to look very graceful standing there amid the bodies; her outfit must have been very expensive. There wasn't a fleck of dust on it, and not a hair under her elegant hat was out of place. She looked to be around twenty years old. She regarded me with an expressionless stare.

She was pale, though. I've never seen anyone so pale to this day, nor so beautiful. For beautiful she was – breathtakingly so. I will admit that I was rather overwhelmed, and I may have embarrassed myself by gawking at her for longer than was necessary.

Eventually, she took the initiative.

"Mr Parker?" she asked, looking down. I nodded. She removed her hat, tossed it carelessly to one side, and lowered herself down to the tracks with more nimbleness than I would have expected.

"They told me you're in charge here," she said.

I nodded, and finally found my voice. "Yes, miss, I am," I said. I began to understand how she had found her way through the barricades.

"Well then, sir, I would like to offer you my services." She fixed me again with those expressionless eyes, as if she were daring me to refuse, but I noticed her hands shaking as she removed her gloves.

"That's very kind of you, miss," I found myself saying, "but – I'm very sorry – we can't let civilians assist. It's too dangerous, and it's best if we have the proper training."

"Don't be absurd," she said impatiently. "Do you think I would have offered to help if I didn't know what I was doing? I know perfectly well how to deal with the wounded." A strange turn of phrase, that – "wounded". I wondered if she had been a nurse in the War, although she seemed too young for that.

People were busy all around us, removing wreckage, carrying people on stretchers, that sort of thing. No one noticed this strange woman demanding to help.

Ordinarily I would never have allowed such a thing. I think it's important to stress that. It creates far more trouble than it's worth, letting civilians assist rescue efforts, as they're liable to get themselves caught up in it and need rescuing themselves.

But this woman was different. She had an air about her – I hardly know how to describe it, but I almost felt as though I was speaking to a queen. There was majesty and grace there, and an indefinable something else, unknowable and remote.

So I acquiesced, reluctantly. And do you know, she really did know what she was doing – even more, in some ways, than I did. She was utterly efficient, and very gentle, and she was fearless too, putting herself at risk more than once in order to reach the injured. But, to my continuing surprise, I never doubted that she had everything completely under control.

Some hours later, she was a far cry from the vision I had seen on the platform. She was much dirtier, and her dress would be ruined, I knew. Her jacket was gone, wrapped around someone's arm when she had run out of bandages. Her hair had long ago fallen out of its intricate arrangement and was tangled and loose behind her.

And yet, she was still beautiful, and she still gave off that indefinable air of competence, knowledge and control. She must have been a nurse, I decided. A veritable Florence Nightingale.

So I knew, when she hadn't come for further supplies for a good half hour, that something must have happened. I still didn't doubt her abilities, but I thought it wise to go and look for her, just in case.

She wasn't easy to find. As I've said, she was fearless, climbing through jagged glass windows to get to people and all sorts of other escapades. No, not _escapades_; that's not the word, really – she was nothing as trivial as that.

I found her at last, deep in the wreckage, with five bodies laid around her. She had clearly pulled them from the debris herself, and they were all obviously dead. There was an old, academic-looking man, his cracked glasses still on his nose, and an elderly woman. There were also two teenagers, a boy and a girl; they couldn't have been older than fifteen. But the woman was crouched next to the other girl, slightly older, with golden hair and a merry face, even in death. The queen – I'll have to call her something, for I never discovered her name – was holding this girl in her arms, whispering a name over and over again. She wasn't crying; indeed, I never saw her cry, not once. I guess it was something beyond crying that she was feeling.

I felt that I was intruding on something intensely private, and I turned to return to my duties, but I heard her stand behind me.

"I'm dreadfully sorry, Mr Parker," she said, walking up to me, and I could hardly hear the tremor in her voice. "But I wonder if you would mind taking me up to the platform. I would like to assist there now, please."

"Yes, miss," I said to her. "But there's no one there now except a few policemen, and the – well, the bodies, miss." I avoided her eyes.

"I would still like to go there," she replied, and I heard the tremor this time.

I led her back to the platform and held out my hand to help her back up, but she managed it by herself with ease. I scrambled up behind her and led her over to where they had laid the bodies of those on the platform who had been hit in the impact. My own heart was beating loudly; it was a dreadful sight. There were children there, whole families, it seemed. I fixed my gaze resolutely forward.

There was no such queasiness in my queen. She was inspecting each body carefully; she had to, for some of them were damaged beyond simple recognition. I wondered how she had the stomach for it, but she went on, never reacting, not even when a truly awful case was before her.

At length, I heard a strangled cry. She ran towards a tall, well-built man with golden hair lying next to a darker, younger boy (for he was not more than eighteen), clearly his brother. They were lying near an older couple. She crouched beside them, and turned her face up to me.

"I wonder if you could leave me for a moment, Mr Parker," she said. Still her voice was rigidly controlled, and it was only her eyes, no longer expressionless but deep wells of grief, that betrayed her.

I turned and left her, there on the platform, with a word to the policemen not to disturb her. I returned to my duties, but we were finishing up, really – it was mostly the dead there now, scattered among the wreck like rag dolls cast aside by a capricious child. When I reached my station, I turned back and watched her for a while. Eventually, I saw her stand up, and walk slowly out of the station into the street outside.

I never saw this woman again, and I never discovered her name. The bodies were all identified, of course, but I couldn't bring myself to read too deeply of the torment of the families, and so I confined myself to sending a bouquet of flowers to the memorial that was erected outside the platform in the following weeks.

In all my years with the ambulance service I have never had an experience to rival that one, or met anyone like this woman. She affected me in a way I can hardly describe, but her dignity and her quiet determination, her gentility and her overwhelming generosity when she must have known what she might find, inspired me to rise to greater heights, and I can confidently attribute to her the ambition and desire to succeed required to attain my current position.

I know that it is unlikely that this little memoir will ever be read, and even more unlikely that any will find it of interest, but if it is ever read, I would like to express my gratitude and my continuing admiration of that queen among women who stood there on the platform that day in 1949.

**THE END**


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